Legs McNeil Remembers Punk Pioneer Ron Asheton

A 21-guitar salute for ax-man Ron Asheton, who succumbed to a heart attack at his Ann Arbor home at the tender age of 60. Asheton was a self-described “stone punk” with a fondness for Nazi memorabilia when he ran into James Newell Osterberg Jr.—soon to be known as Iggy Pop. In 1967, the two formed The Stooges (together with Ron’s brother, Scott, and Dave Alexander, who died in 1975) and unleashed a sludgy, seamy style of punk that would influence everyone from the Sex Pistols to Nirvana and beyond.

Personally, I’ll always be grateful to Asheton for offering up one of my favorite anecdotes in Please Kill Me, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s insanely brilliant and entertaining oral history of punk (which was excerpted in V.F. at the time of its publication, in 1997). The anecdote concerns Nico, the ethereal German beauty and Warhol Superstar, who glommed on to Iggy Pop and moved in with the band in Michigan sometime near the beginning of 1969. (Warning: What follows is graphic and deeply disgusting.)

RON ASHETON: Nico stayed a long time, about three months. Iggy never said if he was in love with her or not. But I remember after she left, Iggy came downstairs looking for some advice. He came up to me and said, “Well, I, I think something’s wrong, maybe you can tell me what this is?” So he whips out his cock, squeezes it, and green goo comes out. I said, “Buddy, you got the clap.”

Nico gave Iggy his first dose of clap.

Is that one of the all-time-great chapter-enders or what? I got the chance to speak to Legs McNeil this afternoon. He was still digesting the news but was generous enough to share some of his recollections:

I interviewed Ronnie in his mother’s house. That’s where the Stooges started, in the basement. I felt like it should have had a fence around it and a plaque or something, but instead there was Ronnie’s old Cadillac up on blocks in the yard. We’d do eight hours of interviews, and he’d just sit there in this old rocking chair and drink vodka with milk. I didn’t drink, but he was so funny that I would’ve happily moved in. In those days, he and Scotty hated Iggy—the Stooges hadn’t reunited yet—so Ronnie really dished the dirt on Iggy. Which made him even funnier.

I got a chance to see Ronnie perform once, and it was like he was learning to play in front of your eyes. He’d start a solo and you’d think, “Uh oh, where is this going?” and by the end he’d be amazing. Just on it.

The Stooges created that wall of sound that you sing over. That was the formula, and everyone copied it from then on.